


Complements

by myriadofnothing



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Pining, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Watercolors, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:55:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26794732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myriadofnothing/pseuds/myriadofnothing
Summary: Sam and Dean are soulmates in denial.  A ficlet.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 9
Kudos: 149
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Complements

**Author's Note:**

> No. 3—My way or the highway

They’re the exceptions that prove the rule.

Soulmate marks are supposed to show two separate halves of one whole: a jackrabbit on one person, a cottontail on the other, both on the same field. Sometimes they’re linked opposites, a sun and moon, or complements, a squirrel and acorn. They aren’t supposed to be subtle versions of the same figure. When he thought about it later with the benefit of hindsight, it wasn't surprising that a flawed pair of soulmarks was on a flawed pair of soulmates.

Their father had told them that they must be soulmate to two sisters, or to two twins, to have soulmarks so similar. They believed it for a long time. Sam had his doubts in his late teens. He had matured enough to reexamine old childhood truths. He felt ways about Dean that he didn’t feel about other people. Dean had told him to knock it off when he talked to him about it. “Don’t say that shit… ever again,” is what he said, but what Sam heard in his angry dismissal was that Dean felt it too—he just wanted to bury his head in the sand.

He faked it long enough that he started to believe it, in a way. He loved his brother as a brother, and if there was more to it, it was because Dean was his occasional parent, too, filling in the gaps that Dad left. Their upbringing made them a little dysfunctional, and it had nothing to do with the snake curled around a sword on Sam’s breast.

Sam left and went to college, met a girl, and was thinking about law school and marriage. Strange soulmarks weren’t too uncommon, and neither was carrying on with your life if you hadn’t found your match. It only would have been strange if he told people he already knew who had the pair to his mark, if he told people it was his brother who had Sam’s same snake speared by a sword.

Then Dean came into the life that he’d so conscientiously built without him. He felt it stronger than ever, pinning Dean on his townhouse’s living room floor at two in the morning. He could see as clear as day that Dean felt it too, writ right there across his face. Dean had forgotten to have his guard up, forgotten to pretend that two twin sisters were out there waiting for them.

“Get off me.”

They get up. For a moment extending into eternity, Sam sees the course of his life change. He’d worked so hard, for so long, convincing himself that leaving Dad and Dean was the right thing to do. Now, beside his soulmate again, he wasn’t sure. They're both adults now. They just have to admit what it is and decide how to work it out. They’d gotten past every other bizarre challenge life had thrown at them.

Dean turns to the side and gathers up his mask. The moment fades away and Sam realizes nothing has changed.

“Sammy. Dad's missing.”


End file.
